


To Make A Deal

by jenstraflintlocked



Series: Keep Calling You [8]
Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-04
Updated: 2019-12-04
Packaged: 2021-02-25 23:53:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,211
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21674002
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jenstraflintlocked/pseuds/jenstraflintlocked
Relationships: Sara Lance/Ava Sharpe
Series: Keep Calling You [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1541704
Comments: 2
Kudos: 56





	To Make A Deal

Ava was sat at her desk, feeling numb, signing yet another letter of condolence that would explain nothing to distraught parents, siblings, partners. Time Agents weren’t encouraged to have partners, unless perhaps they were part of the Bureau too, but there were some. And none of these people would ever know the truth about how their special people had died.

She found herself wishing again that Sara still called her. That she’d told Sara about Mallus. Maybe Sara wouldn’t have agreed to work with Rip, if she’d heard it from Ava. Maybe Ava wouldn’t be sat here in this guilt-ridden grief, trying to find something good to say about agents she barely even knew. For the first time, Ava contemplated calling Sara first. But what would she say? “Sorry to hear your archnemesis who killed your sister got resurrected thanks to my boss.” was honest but hardly a standard condolences card. 

Ava didn’t often cry but the deaths of all those agents. And for nothing. She wished she knew where Rip was because she wanted to cuss him out. Hit him. Tear him a new one. She hadn’t known anything about it until Director Bennett had come storming in from the control room, requesting that she got a team assembled and fetched back…all those bodies. She was glad that Rip hadn’t involved her. The thought of ever facing Sara again if she’d been involved in letting Damien Darhk come back to life brought a bitter taste to her mouth. She’d studied Sara for five years, and yes, she found the woman infuriating. And yes, she’d been using her as a guide on How Not To Do Things. But a side effect of all that was knowing a lot about Sara and her past.

Thinking about what Sara must be feeling, on top of stamping another typed letter full of generic sentences about serving with distinction and pride was too much. She slammed down her pen on her desk, hard enough to crack it and leave ink spilling onto the letter.

“Ugh!” she hastily threw the pen in the bin and dragged her fingers over her eyes. She was contemplating giving in for the night when her comm phone beeped. She groaned, not wanting to deal with Gary at the moment and she was about to ignore it or reject when she saw the number. After that many calls, she recognised it in an instant. With a mix of trepidation and relief, she hit answer.

There was no cheery, drawled greeting this time. The look on Sara’s face was more set than when she’d played Chicken, more furious than at the end of their last call. Ava shifted in her seat, fighting the urge to swallow, at the memory of “Fine.”

“Hey.” She said, awkwardly, because Sara was just staring at her.

“Why do you have ink all over your face?”

“Oh! Um. I was…” she rubbed where she assumed the ink was. “I was writing…” the word caught in her mouth. “Letters. And I broke my pen.”

“Of commendation? For all those dead agents?” If Sara’s face was hard, her voice was harder.

It drained everything from Ava. She felt herself visibly sag. “Condolences. For the…for their…families.” She looked anywhere but at Sara. If she looked at anyone right now, she was going to cry.

“Must be a lot of letters. Apart from us and Rip, there were no survivors. We checked.”

Ava nodded, given a small sniff. “I heard about Damien Darhk.” She all but blurted it out. “I’m sorry. I know…”

“What’s the Time Bureau’s plan to deal with him? And don’t give me any more bullshit about Need to Know.” Sara cut her off.

“I…don’t know.” Well it was the truth. And after everything, she felt Sara deserved that. Even if the admission cost her. “Rip’s still missing. And even if he wasn’t, he’d be hauled before the tribunal. Allowing Damien Darhk to be resurrected just to prove Mallus exists? Causing the single biggest anachronism yet? And the deaths of all those agents?” Ava scoffed.

“Do you believe Mallus exists?”

“I don’t know.” Ava sighed. “I know that time is broken. I know it’s vital we repair the anachronisms. I know Rip just caused one of the biggest out there instead of fixing it. And I dread to think what Darhk will do now he’s back.”

“Yeah. Me too.”

“I mean, what were you even thinking helping Rip in the first place?” Ava had to ask, had to know why.

“He promised to call you off, give us a free rein again.”

Sara probably wasn’t blaming Ava for all this, but that didn’t particularly matter when Ava felt responsible anyway. If she’d not been chasing after the Legends, Sara would never have had to make that deal. 

“Well, he no longer has the authority to do that. So.” She tried to sound her usual business-like self.

“Do you?”

“Do I what?”

“Have the authority to call off the hunt?”

Ava shrugged. “It’s my hunt.”

“So how about if I help _you_? Would you make the same deal?” Sara was staring intently at her, all business.

“How can you help?” Ava didn’t mean to sound dismissive, she was actually curious, but it came out that way anyway and she cursed internally. Being abrasive was the last thing she wanted to be right now.

“I know where Rip Hunter is.”

“He’s still with you people, on the Waverider.” Ava rolled her eyes. “An idiot could figure that out.”

“Okay. Yes. But _you_ still can’t track down the Waverider.”

Ava’s jaw twitched. Something pinged on her screen. Co-ordinates.

“Do we have a deal?”

Well. It might give her a chance to smack Rip over the head. Besides, she couldn’t really turn it down, not when she’d been torturing herself over not trusting and working with Sara in the first place. This was a second chance. “Deal. I’ll inform Director Bennett and have a team ready in ten minutes.”

In actual fact it was more like five. Director Bennett was angry at the large-scale loss the Time Bureau had just suffered and hadn’t particularly cared about her search for the Legends before. He certainly didn’t now he had a time travelling Damien Darhk to deal with. It was Rip who was out of leniency now and he was more than willing to accept the Legends flying around if it meant Rip’s arrest and standing trial for what he’d done.

The expression of Sara’s face was even worse in person. She walked over to stand by Sara, hoping the show of support would not go unnoticed. But Sara was too busy concentrating on Rip. Well. They had him now. And the chaos that was no doubt about to be unleashed would require all of her attention. She felt a little mean calling the Legends a bunch of idiots, although she thought they were for helping Rip. Besides, she didn’t want Sara thinking that they were, what had Sara called them? Frenemies. She had to remain professional. Particularly in front of Director Bennett. So she made no sign of farewell, didn’t so much as look back at Sara as she portalled back to the Time Bureau with Rip in tow.


End file.
